AllMovie

A man down on his luck runs afoul of a beautiful but dangerous woman in this superior low-budget film noir. Mike Lambert (Glenn Ford), while trained as a mining engineer, has fallen on hard times and is driving a truck when his rig breaks down in a small town. He soon meets the seductive Paula Craig (Janis Carter) at a cafe and is quickly drawn into her web of larceny. Paula encourages her lover, Stephen Price (Barry Sullivan), to rob the bank that he manages, then kills Stephen and takes the ill-gotten money. Paula confesses the killing to Mike and begs him to run away with her, claiming she murdered Price in a fit of passion while she was drunk. Mike considers her offer until he learns that his close friend Jeff Cunningham (Edgar Buchanan) has been accused of killing Stephen -- and that Paula intends to pin the robbery that Stephen committed on Mike. Femme Fatale Janis Carter originally studied to be a classical musician before her career as an actress took off, while Edgar Buchanan's big break would come 16 years down the road, when he was cast as "Uncle Joe" on the television series Petticoat Junction.